It’s literally not. Grooming is when an adult tries to establish an emotional connection with a minor with the objective of committing sexual abuse. It’s usually a long process (sometimes even years) which is why victims are most likely to be related or have close interactions with the abuser.
At most this could be a power imbalance situation since he’s a professor and his boss, but the he never forced the mc either, so this is pretty much a
“I thought you liked me so I was going to seduce you and leave the choice in your hands” situation.
Next time please don’t use words you don’t fully know the meaning of, cuz what you described isn’t grooming, it’s manipulation
Isn't that what he is doing though? "adult tries to establish an emotional connection with a minor with the objective of committing sexual abuse" only difference is that both of them are adults but then again there's there's huge age gap and mc is in his early twenties. Also we can he did SAed mc in omegaverse terms when he marked his pheromones all over mc without his consent. And when did mc ever showed interest in professor in a romantic way? He was his idol but he never did anything to interpret as he "liked" the professor.
“I thought you liked me so I was going to seduce you and leave the choice in your hands” no man he already had ulterior motives to approach the mc. He never seduced him because he "thought" mc liked him.
Maybe I used the incorrect term according to you, but you can't possible say that he isn't manipulating mc to get his own way and he never had any other intentions when interacting with mc. Cause even when he gave a choice to mc, it also felt like a part of his plan to me
If you read properly I said “Next time please don’t use words you don’t fully know the meaning of, cuz what you described isn’t grooming, it’s manipulation”
On the other hand I never said mc showed a romantic interest in the professor, I said that the professor might’ve misunderstood, which led him to tell the mc straight to his face that he was interested in him (he probably wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t misunderstand mc’s feelings) but that he was free to go if he wanted to. He never hid it so I don’t really see where you’re coming from, also as far as I remember the age gap is less than 10 years.
I do agree it’s invasive to mark someone without their consent but 1.- that doesn’t affect the mc since he can’t sense the pheromones and 2.- that was most likely to piss the ml off since the ml also marks the mc with his pheromones
If you think about it, the biggest red flag here is the ml.
When he found out mc liked his cousin he crafted a whole ass story of her liking to peg guys in order to fuck the mc with the excuse of “practice”
He constantly marks him with pheromones
It’s one sided but he’s delulu and thinks mc will do everything he wants including living together
Breaks his arm to catch mc’s attention
Downloads tracking app on mc’s phone
And the list goes on
I agree with the other user, this is not grooming. It's a predatory relationship. He's not a child and this isn't happening over years, so it's not grooming. Grooming without negative connotations is what schools do to make children ready for the adult world, teaching them specific skills and attitudes. When pedophiles do it, they twist the grooming so that the child grows up to serve them sexually. So it is quite literally NOT grooming bc Wooju is grown up and he isn't shaping his idea of the world. It's manipulative and predatory, however. I get what you're saying though, it's very calculated. The professor abused his power to try to sleep with a student. We just have other words for what happens between adults.
Just want to to make it clear that me pointing out professor's behaviour doesn't mean I'm on ml's side. In fact I already said that he is a rapist. His sorry ass alpha ego get hurt over the most stupid things, hurt mc and then act like he is the victim. But that doesn't mean we can excuse professor. Yes he seems like saint compared to ml but still he is not a good person. Okay let's think all this was a misunderstanding(which I highly doubt) and professor didn't have any other ill intention towards mc. But does that make asking for sexual favours from a student right considering that he is the adult here? It's creepy no matter how much he appear to be good. And honestly if I was the mc I whould have cut off being friends with ml, and report the professor for his inappropriate sexual advances. One thing I can say though professor is the most interesting character in the story while both ml and mc are typical yaoi couple, a pushover and the other who take advantage of him. Professor on the other hand is mysterious and seems like he has lot more to say.
And also after thinking about it and reading the othe other comment I agree that I used the incorrect term. That's my fault and I apologies for that.
Yeah I agree that it was my fault to name it grooming. I meant predatory and sorry about that.
What professor doing with mc is called grooming. Yes, he did asked for the consent from mc and yes, it looks like he cares about mc's opinion and give him a choice. You could say that he is better than ml considering what he did. But the thing is that's what a lot of groomers do. Appear as the most trustable, good person to the victim and manipulate them into choosing him without a second thought. We already know that professor has ulterior motives with the way he acted up to now.
And I'm not saying ml is good compared to professor cause we already that he is a rapist.